


the brightest star

by reversetheuniverse



Category: Girl Meets World
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-14
Updated: 2016-09-14
Packaged: 2018-08-14 23:57:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8034031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reversetheuniverse/pseuds/reversetheuniverse
Summary: She's fire igniting beneath him, and Farkle doesn't dare be water for a single second.





	the brightest star

**Author's Note:**

> It's rated teen mostly because of the cursing. I wanted to explore Farkle having depression, so you can see that in the text even though it never outright say it. Mostly, I've been in a writing rut, and this is the first thing to come out of it, so you're getting what you get. But it does end with Riley and Farkle together, fear not!
> 
> Also, I hate these dumbos because all they make me think of is space and I love space so I can't help but put space references in riarkle fics!! 
> 
> Also, also, the name of the bar, "O'Halligan's" is a reference to a HILARIOUS John Mulaney sketch. Here's the link to it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmuIVwq3aeY

He wakes up with a throbbing in his head, an ache in his mind—another night of cognitive distress left behind.

It’s always like this nowadays.

To suffer is an art, he thinks, but he’s not an artist, not in the slightest bit. His thing is engineering, and, most recently, being a bartender at O’Halligan’s. It’s really just a part-time job to get him through college, but it doesn’t help that his friends know exactly when to pop in at night, when the night is at a low and his boss is feeling exponentially generous. He drinks to be merry, but really he’s just hiding behind his own insecurities.

He may be Farkle Minkus, engineering/physics genius and overall science prodigy, but that seems to be nothing compared to one of his best friends, Lucas Friar.

Don’t get him wrong—Lucas is truly his best friend. He’d rely on him for anything, be there for him at any given time. But for some reason, all his accomplishments in life are minuscule compared to the _existence_ of Lucas.

Riley and Maya practically put him up on a freakin’ pedestal, for god’s sakes.

He shouldn’t feel this jealous, really; Riley and Maya love him still and Lucas is his friend. Jealousy won’t get him anywhere, it’ll only stress him out more. Unfortunately for him, though, his brain has other things in mind when it comes to anxious thoughts.

Farkle also buckles more under the crippling weight of stress when his own parents announce their divorce. He can’t deal with that, not right now while he’s still managing his grades for his double-major degree, keeping bread on the table through a part-time job he hardly manages to fit in his schedule, and the mess that is Lucas wedging himself between his best friends.

Coping never really has been his forte _ever_.

But he doesn’t tell his friends. Why bother, really? He doesn’t want to stress them out over it, too. They’ve all got more trivial stuff on their plates apart from Farkle’s familial problems and overall feelings of inadequacy.

So Farkle Minkus internalizes, internalizes, _internalizes_.

 

//

 

Farkle practically blows a gasket when he attends a frat party to let off some steam and Lucas and Riley show up together, hand in hand.

_What in the ever-loving **fuck**?_

It bothers him, it really does, and it bothers him even more that he doesn’t know _why_.

When he was younger, he was absolutely, head-over-heels in love with both Maya and Riley. But that was a long time ago. Of course, he _does_ still love them, but not in the way he used to. And when Lucas came into the picture, he was well aware of how Riley felt about him (and unaware of how Maya felt, but she’s sworn him to secrecy on that). It totally makes sense that Riley would show up with Lucas, that they would be together—it was bound to happen.

So why does it leave a sour taste in his mouth?

He downs a cup of jungle juice. He doesn’t have time to think about his stressors, not tonight. Maya joins him when he’s downing his second drink, whisking away the red solo cup in his hand and taking a swig.

“Looks like Huckleberry and our sweet Riles are an item now,” she remarks, and Farkle can tell in her face that she’s a bit disappointed in his decision.

“Yeah,” Farkle mutters, stealing the drink back from her. “They’re a great pair.” Maya watches him curiously, her eyebrow arching into her forehead.

“What’s got your undies all in a twist, Minkus? You jealous?”

“ _No_ ,” he says, giving her the eye. “I’m not jealous. I just have this weird feeling about it. Like a bad taste in my mouth or something. But that’s probably the jungle juice.” Maya pats him on the back sympathetically, shaking her head.

“Oh _hun_.”

“What?” he asks, head spinning after he whips around to stare her in the eyes.

“Farkle, I suggest we go to the bar tonight, and we get drunk off our asses. It won’t make us feel good in the morning, but we’ll feel better about tonight for sure.” He sighs and nods his head, ditching the cup and following Maya out the door.

Tonight’s plan was to drink no matter where he was, and damnit, he _will_ drink.

 

//

 

He wakes up early in the morning in a foreign bed, a girl lying peacefully on her side, still deep in slumber. Farkle sighs, rubbing his face out of pure disappointment in himself before slipping into his boxers once again, his jeans and shirt soon to follow.

Oh, he got drunk alright. Serves him right for getting drunk with Maya. She’s simultaneously an awesome and absolutely _terrible_ wingman. He doesn’t even think he can remember the girl who’s lying next to him’s name.

Farkle’s not one for one-night stands, but here he is, in the middle of an unknown apartment struggling to get himself clothed again so he can run out before the mystery girl awakens.

He really shouldn’t have. He really shouldn’t run, either, but he’s not sure he’d get anywhere with this girl. All he’d want is everything from her, and she’d probably only give him a fraction of her world. No one’s really into reciprocity nowadays. It’s all just give and take.

Farkle ditches the apartment quietly without another thought.

 

//

 

Farkle does a lot of stupid things more often than not, it seems. For a genius, he really misses the mark in almost everything he does.

He agrees to meet Riley on the fifth floor of the library in the evening one night to help her prepare for her chem test.

Farkle’s a sucker in general, especially for things concerning Riley (she’s got those dumb puppy-dog eyes she likes to flash at him that turn his legs to jelly, lord help him.) So it’s not too hard for her to convince him to help, suggesting that they go to the deserted fifth floor of the library for some peace and quiet. He agrees to meet her ( _sucker_ ), and tells her he’ll bring some of her favorite snacks ( _sucker, suuuuucker_ ), as well.

Riley Matthews is a distracting individual.

“So, _Farkley_ , what happened to you at the frat party the other night? Lucas and I saw you, but then you disappeared for the rest of the night,” she asks, munching away on a stack of Pringles. Farkle raises his brow.

“Hm, this is _definitely_ not chemistry.”

“Answer the question, you nerd!” she says, throwing a chip at him.

“Alright, alright! I’ll answer so you’ll stop the chip warfare!” he exclaims, holding up his hands in surrender. “Maya and I ditched so we could go get real drinks at the bar instead. The jungle juice just wasn’t cutting it, go figure. Now can we get back to balancing equations?”

“Nah, I want to know what happened at the bar.” God, what a stubborn girl. What is she getting at, anyway?

“It was a bar. I got _drunk_ , Riles, end of story. Can we get back to chemistry, now?”

“Why’d you leave?”

“God, what is this, twenty questions?” He doesn’t understand why she needs to know what his reasons were for leaving. He doesn’t even really know his reasons for leaving, but he doesn’t think he wants to uncover those quite yet. “I don’t know, Riley.”

“ _Farkle_ ,” she says in a demanding tone, a way to get his attention. He’s embarrassed how fast he responds. “Maya told me you went home with someone.”

“Yeah, so?” He’s annoyed. He’s annoyed that Maya told her, sure, but he’s also annoyed that she’s so curious about his love life. What does it matter to her? She’s certainly never expressed an interest in it before.

“I dunno, that’s just weird for you, Farkle. Why’d you do it?”

“Why does it matter?” Their voices have raised enough that their words have become echoes throughout the floor.

“It just _does_.”

“Bullshit. I’m an adult; I can do what I want. Why do you want to mother me on my life so much, Riley? Why can’t you just drop it and move on like I am? C’mon. You. Me. Chemistry. _Now_.”

“It doesn’t bother you that you aren’t going to see that girl again?” Farkle shrugs.

“Nope. It’s not like I went to the bar planning to pick up chicks. You know me.”

“But what if she’s the _one_ , Farkle? What if she’s the one and you let her go?” Farkle’s mouth twists to the side and his eyes narrow when Riley’s index finger jabs into his chest, the rest of her leaning across the table, her face only inches away from his.

“She’s _not_ ,” he says, his hand wrapping around her wrist. It shocks him that her skin tingles underneath his, the warmth of her spreading throughout him.

“You can’t possibly know that,” Riley tells him, not removing her hand from his grasp.

“You can’t possibly know that Lucas is the one for you,” he remarks, the words slipping out of his mouth before he can hold them back. Riley’s eyes widen in response, and he’s afraid for a moment that she’s going to shout some more at him, but, very much like the wind, her actions are unpredictable. She conducts her own experiment without telling him.

Riley kisses Farkle right on the lips in the middle of the deserted fifth floor of the library, and she doesn’t stop. He doesn’t make her stop, either, pulling her against a book shelf and kissing her like she’s the only source of oxygen left in the world and he can’t get enough of her. She’s fire igniting beneath him, and Farkle doesn’t _dare_ be water for a single second.

She removes his jacket of her own volition, desperate for skin-to-skin contact. His hands slide underneath her shirt and up the expanse of her creamy stomach, forgetting for a long while that what they’re doing is _not okay_.

Studying! They’re here to study! And she’s dating _Lucas_.

“ _Shit_ ,” he breathes onto her swollen lips, red from where his teeth were tugging and pulling at the sensitive flesh. “We shouldn’t be . . . _you_ . . . I’m not . . .” Coherent sentences are not in his repertoire tonight, apparently.

“ _I know_ ,” she whispers back, her wide eyes staring up at his. Farkle swears to _god_ there are stars in her irises, brighter than supernovas. “Can we pretend a little longer?”

Pretend. He doesn’t like that word, but he’s a real sucker for brown eyes that emit a force stronger than any black hole he’s come to know.

 

//

 

They don’t talk after that night.

They don’t tell Maya or Lucas what happened in the library that night, either. Why should they? It’s not something that they need to discuss further. At least, that’s what Riley thinks. Farkle thinks this all fucking sucks.

He’s in love with her. Of course, _of course_ he is! He wasn’t jealous of Lucas entirely. More than anything, he was _envious._ He loves Riley more than just platonically like Maya, and his revelation occurred too late, right after Riley and Lucas were already dating.

And the cherry on top of this shit-situation sundae is that Riley loves him back, but she’s chosen to stay with Lucas.

Fuck it all.

It’s not like it even matters to him at this point, anyway—his life is already screwing him over enough that he expects it. But his heart yearns for hers and his lips for the way hers met his with such fervor, and all it makes him want to do is down a few PBRs and wonder what went wrong with his life.

Farkle doesn’t do that, though, because he knows it wouldn’t help. It doesn’t help to stay stuck on a girl who will never choose him, either, so Farkle tries his hardest to get that idea out of his head.

Romance has never once been his thing, not in the slightest. He’s even tried approaching it scientifically.

_Hypothesis: Romance sucks._

_Conclusion: Yes, it does, and you shouldn’t deal with it._

 

But the thing is, he _wants_ to deal with romance. Farkle wants Riley to be a part of his life forever in every aspect, but he can’t always get what he wants. He tests out a new hypothesis.

 

_Hypothesis: If I date someone else, then Riley Matthews will no longer torment me._

 

It’s worth a shot.

 

//

 

By some strange coincidence, he does bump into mystery girl. He feels bad that he doesn’t remember her name and that he ran out of her apartment before she even woke up, but she’s fine with it. She was just as wasted, and she’d like to get to know him for real, if that’s alright with him.

Farkle decides it’s worth it.

No, dating won’t fix his life, he realizes that. But companionship can be a good thing, and ever since the incident in the library, he’s felt rather ostracized from his friends. So mystery girl melts into his life, and he gets to know her for real.

She wants to be an engineer, too. She loves science and math and solving Sudoku puzzles in her spare time, and she’s sweet as a peach and everything Farkle could ever dream of.

. . . _Except._

Except when he stares into her hazel eyes, all he wants to see are the brownest of browns, golden like liquid amber in sunlight. She’s pretty, there’s no doubt about that, but he wants to see those galaxies he once saw in the darkened, deserted library. He wants so much of her that she can’t provide for him, and it drives him insane.

Why does he have to be like this? Farkle is selfish as ever, and he hates himself for it. He wants and wants and _wants_ , green with envy and greedy as hell.

Eventually, he says goodbye to the mystery girl, because he can’t be for her what she wants him to be. It’s unfair to her that he covets someone else while he has a glittering gem of his own sitting right in front of him. She’s sad, but she understands.

Farkle hates himself. He internalizes. Inadequate Minkus, unable to be the kind of person people want to be around, unable to be a dazzling specimen that everyone flocks to.

Maya makes him open up one day, though, because the bags under his eyes are carrying their own bags, and he’s not being the same Farkle he usually is. He doesn’t want to unload his burdens, but Maya pokes and prods until he does, and she listens and she _understands_.

“Farkle, don’t feel like your friends don’t want to be there for you. We do, one hundred percent. You loved us from the very beginning, were there for us when we needed it. So why don’t you let us take over for you once in a while? It’s the least we can do.”

He hugs her like she’s a life preserver, and she presses a kiss to his cheek.

“You’re the best, Maya. Lucas doesn’t deserve you,” he tells her.

“Same goes to you, Minkus. Riley doesn’t deserve a saint like you. Yet here we are, pining over them like a couple of fools. We really are stupid, aren’t we?” Farkle laughs, actually _laughs_ for the first time in a long while, and the weight that’s been bearing down on his chest feels lighter than ever.

“Downright stupid, for sure.”

“Now why don’t you do me a favor and talk to Riley? I’m not saying that telling her what’s been going on is gonna change her mind, as it shouldn’t, but she does want to be your friend. Let her in, too.”

Farkle couldn’t agree more, but feels his gut twist over the notion.

 

//

 

Farkle musters up the courage to reach out to Riley. She’s as awkward around him as he is her, but he doesn’t let that get in the way, at least not today. He tells her how he’s been feeling, how his parents are divorcing and how he misses having her as a friend. Riley sheds tears for him and pulls him into a tight embrace.

“Farkle, don’t ever think you come second to Lucas,” she tells him, her tears, staining his shoulder. “He doesn’t hold a candle to you, not even on the darkest night of the year.” Farkle believes her absolutely, without a doubt.

“Thank you, Riley. You’re one of my best friends. I don’t know what I’d do without you.” She plants a kiss on his forehead and spits out apologies profusely for not being a good friend to him, but Farkle won’t stand for it.

“Stop apologizing. You’re one of the best friends I’ve ever had, probably the best person I’ve ever met. Your brighter than the brightest star in the sky—if Lucas doesn’t hold a candle to me, then Sirius _definitely_ doesn’t hold an _inkling_ of a spark to you.”

“Farkle Minkus, what did I ever do to deserve a guy like you?” she asks with a laugh, her forehead pressed up against his.

“You exist. That’s all there is to it,” is his simple response.

 

//

 

O’Halligan’s dies down every Saturday at two in the morning. It makes sense—that’s the last call for alcohol, when everyone is too tired to even manage another drink. Farkle likes this time of night the most because he can be at peace with the world. He just shines glasses and thinks about each and every star in the sky by name, sends a little prayer out to Mars to be a little bit extra.

But then she barrels through the doors, her head held high with purpose, and it makes Farkle drop the glass in his hand. It shatters, but it doesn’t draw his attention away from her for a single second.

“Farkle,” she calls his name sweetly. She’s wearing a tight frock in a vivid purple, _her_ color, the one that makes her stand out and his heart beat wildly in his chest like a snare drum. He’s not sure why she’s at the bar alone, but he has a feeling she has a good reason for it.

“Riley. What’s up?”

“I have a proposition for you, Farkle,” she states firmly.

“Present it in the form of a hypothesis,” he retorts, trying to at least gain _some_ footing on the situation. Riley laughs but obliges, her eyes crinkling.

“Hypothesis: Farkle Minkus and Riley Matthews are good together.” Farkle swallows hard.

“There’s a problem with your hypothesis. Riley Matthews is with Lucas Friar, so ultimately the conclusion would be not in your favor.” Riley leans up against the counter, close enough to be eye-level with him, her face inches from his.

“There’s no problem, not when Lucas Friar does not factor in,” she tells him, before adding, “Lucas and I broke up.”

“So then I suppose a conclusion could be made about this statement of yours,” Farkle says, keeping his cool. “But not before testing it out.” Riley smiles, pearlescent as ever.

“Get over here, you nerd.” Farkle climbs over the counter to meet her, landing not so gracefully, but Riley helps him regain his balance. Her hands don’t leave his, and the gap between them become almost non-existent very quickly.

“So how exactly were you planning on testing this experiment out?” he asks, gesturing between the two of them.

“Well, I was hoping I could kiss you first. Is that alright with you, Farkley?”

“More than okay,” he says, his breath ghosting over her lips. “That’s _fantastic_.”

             


End file.
